You Get My Heart Racing
by Nadin4400
Summary: Owen and Claire meet in a hospital where she works as a GP. AU for Clawen Ficathon.


**Author's note:** Okay, so this is my submission for Clawen Ficathon on tumblr written for bryc-dlls-hwrd. I don't think I ever wrote a JW AU before and I hope it worked out :)

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Having a dislocated shoulder hurt like a bitch.

What was even worse, though, was that the ER sent him upstairs for an X-ray and prescribed painkillers instead of giving him Vicodin and sending him off on his merry way.

"Just to be safe," the nurse that snapped his shoulder back into its socket told Owen in a voice that allowed no argument. He should've given it a chance, perhaps, but at the moment, he was too busy trying to breath past the pain that seemed to have been shooting right through his entire body.

And this was how he found himself sitting in a plastic chair that might have as well been qualified as the most uncomfortable chair in the world in the third floor corridor for what felt like ten years. On the one hand, the pain went down to a dull throbbing and he no longer felt like someone had ripped his arm off, but on the other – he was about five seconds away from climbing the walls. Awfully white walls that were making his eyes hurt. Wouldn't it be ironic to go goddamn blind in this sterile place while waiting for help?

He was starting to contemplate screaming – if B-movies were right, it usually helped get the staff's attention. Then again, if B-movies were right, the world was full of cheesy one-liners, and that was not something he was willing to accept just yet.

"Owen Grady?"

He snapped his head up at the sound of his name, just about to say "Finally!" when he actually saw the woman standing before him.

White coat over a light blue blouse and knee-long practical skirt. A neat bob of fiery red hair falling down to her shoulders. Piercing green eyes watching him quizzically. She was not smiling, but he could easily imagine the curve of her lips. She probably had dimples, too.

"Are you Mr. Grady?" She repeated when Owen continued to stare wordlessly at her, fully aware that he had to respond but somehow at a loss for words for a moment or two.

"Yes!" Hurriedly, he scrambled up to his feet, nearly tripping over the chair legs in the process. "Yes, I am."

She waited for another heartbeat if maybe he would, after all, plant his face in the linoleum.

"I am Dr. Dearing." She said at last, turning on her heels. "Follow me."

He did, no questions asked.

"It says here it's not the first time this has happened to you." Once in her office, she flipped through what Owen guessed was his chart or whatever forms they filled in for him earlier in the ER.

He shrugged, regretting it minutely when another sharp jolt of pain zapped through his arm. "Occupational hazard."

Dr. Dearing – Claire, he'd read on her badge – marked something on the form.

"Construction?" She asked in that flat voice that implied dislocated shoulders weren't that uncommon.

"City Zoo, actually," Owen corrected her, watching her look up slowly, head tilted curiously to her shoulder.

"Construction at the zoo?" She specified.

"No, I train the seals. You know, jumping on command, balancing a ball on their nose-"

"I know what trained seals do," Claire assured him.

He cleared his throat. "Right, so…"

"I just didn't think they would normally assault anyone."

Owen gaped at her for a moment. "They don't," he said defensively. "They didn't. They just get playful sometimes, and each of them is over 300 pounds of… a lot of muscles."

"I see." She put the pen down. "Well, the problem with the traumas like yours, Mr. Grady-"

"Owen, please."

She promptly ignored him. "—is that the more often they happen, the easier they happen. I assume that in the future you wouldn't want to dislocate your joints every time you sneeze, so I would recommend avoiding violent encounters with the marine life." She glanced down briefly. "Certainly not every other month."

He tipped his head and saluted her. "Got it, Doc!"

"Now," Claire stood up and walked around her desk. "Let's have a look at it."

"But they already-" Owen quickly clamped his mouth shut when it hit him she was asking him to take off his shirt. "Sure."

It was ridiculous, really. He'd been dealing with things far more intimidating than people in white coats on a daily basis his whole life, and yet here he was on a verge of a heart attack because his doctor turned out being breathtakingly gorgeous. Shouldn't hospitals know better than that? _She_ was an occupational hazard.

"I'm fine, honestly," he said once seated on the cot, sporting a while undershirt and an impressive bruise that began to spread over his left shoulder, belatedly realizing how completely stupid it sounded.

"We'll see about that." Claire noted in that breezy voice that somehow made it clear his case wasn't all that special, which set Owen's teeth on edge.

"So, you've been a physician for how long?" He asked while she prodded the tender skin around the bruise, choosing to focus on the small talk rather than on the touch of her hands. She smelled nice, too – of lilacs and vanilla, not antiseptic and disinfectant like the rest of the hospital.

"A while."

"And… what's it like?"

 _Smooth, Grady. Very smooth_.

She didn't turn to him, but her lips quirked ever so slightly - not quite a smile yet, but it made his heart do a small summersault in his chest. "In general or today?"

"Today," he said rather boldly.

Eyebrow arched elegantly, Claire met his gaze. "Challenging." And added, "Don't be such a baby, Mr. Grady," when he flinched with an _Ouch!_ and stiffened under her touch. "I'm nowhere near the area that's supposed to hurt."

"It's Owen," he insisted, then narrowed his eyes. "And are you allowed to tell your patients not to be _babies_?"

"Only to those who act that way," she countered, and maybe there was a great deal of wishful thinking, but he could have sworn that there was more to her smile than trying to get through this appointment so that she could poke at someone else's injuries.

This close, he could see golden specs in her eyes and a dusting of freckles on her nose, and it was such a good moment to say something smart or funny, or at the very least memorable in one way or the other, but all he could do was stare at her, his pulse quickening. How on earth was this woman having an upper hand without even doing anything was beyond him.

"For the record," he uttered after a few moments, "my seals are the best trained seals in California."

Claire's eyes glistened with amusement. "I'm sure they are."

She walked back to her desk, allowing him to pull his shirt back on.

"You know, you should-" Owen began just as she spoke, too.

"The X-ray room-" They both fell silent at once, and after a few moments Claire said, "Yes?"

He squinted. "You go."

"The X-ray room is down the hallway." She explained without missing a beat. "It's Dr. Morris. Take the first turn to the right and then the second to the left. There are signs, it's pretty straightforward. They're waiting for you."

"Okay, great. So, it's second to the right and then first to the left? Dr. Marshall?"

"Morris," she said. "It's first to the left…No, second-" She rubbed her forehead. "Never mind. I'll just take you, and then you can collect the results here. Shall we?"

She opened the door, and Owen hoped his shit-eating grin wasn't as obvious as he thought it was.

xoxox

Twenty minutes later, Owen plopped down into the familiar chair outside of Dr. Claire Dearing's office next to a kid of about 6 whose nose was buried in a comic book.

"I'm Owen," he introduced himself after a couple of minutes.

"Jesse," the boy glanced up at him.

"You come here a lot?" Owen joked.

"It's a hospital," Jesse responded seriously.

 _Which doesn't answer my question_.

"Fair enough." Owen cleared his throat. "What are you in for?"

Jesse jerked his chin toward his knee that had a pack of ice strapped to it with an elastic bandage. "Football. You?"

"Bad decisions," Owen admitted. And added, "Don't play with seals."

Jesse regarded him cautiously for a moment. "Wasn't gonna."

Just then, Claire breezed past them with a stack of folders in her hands, giving a quick nod of acknowledgement to Owen and a smile to Jesse before disappearing in the examination room. Both Owen and Jesse followed her with wistful glances.

"Dr. Claire is pretty," Jesse commented.

Owen's ears perked up. "Are you allowed to call her that?"

" _I_ am." The boy shrugged.

 _Figures_.

"So, you _do_ come here a lot." Owen said – a statement, not a question.

"Football is serious." Jesse told him solemnly.

"I can see that."

Owen slumped back in his chair, trying to ignore the discomfort in his shoulder and wondering why hadn't he gotten the drugs yet if it was why the ER sent him up here in the first place. Granted, he didn't mind it that much anymore, but his day would definitely improve if every uncalculated move he made wasn't painful as hell. But hey, what did they say about appreciating small things in life?

"And she likes the Hulk, too," Jesse noted.

"Hm?"

The boy held up his comic book. "Dr. Claire. She likes the Hulk." He thought for a moment. "And LEGOs."

Owen's lips quirked. "And does she like… um, performances? Like the circus?"

"Who doesn't like the circus?"

"People who don't like clowns."

Jesse's mouth fell open in astonishment, eyes wide. "Who doesn't like clowns?"

Owen honestly had no response to that, so he just spluttered for a few moments, racking his brain for _something_ but coming up empty.

"Just ask her," Jesse shrugged. "I mean, if she doesn't, she doesn't. Nothing you can do about that."

Owen chuckled under his breath, both amused and somewhat impressed by how simply the children saw the world. He almost forgot what it was like to look at things that way instead of overthinking everything, ever, the way the adults were conditioned to. There was something to it, he thought. Certain freedom he couldn't recall feeling for quite a while now.

Claire approached them again and crouched down beside Jesse. "Hey, buddy," she smiled, receiving a thousand-watt grin in response. "You're good to go. Your dad will be here in a minute or two."

Jesse nodded eagerly, then pointed to Owen. "Owen likes clowns."

"Does he, really?" Claire regarded him for a moment with an amused quirk of an eyebrow. Then shook her head and ruffled the boy's hair. "Please don't come back soon."

His grin grew wider.

"Mr. Grady." She stood up and so did he, both of them pausing by the door to her office. Claire handed him an envelope with his X-ray scan. "You're good to go, too. Don't forget to fill your prescription."

Owen shifted from foot to foot, gaze darting up and down the corridor.

"Do you do deliveries?" He asked.

"This is a hospital, not Amazon," Claire responded.

He ran a hand through his hair. "This came out wrong. Let me try again. Would you like to stop by sometime and see the show? It happens once a day, twice on the weekend."

She watched him for a moment or two, surprised. "Are you seriously asking me out?"

Owen shot a quick look at Jesse, then turned to her again. "How often do you meet people who use 'occupational hazard' referring to a zoo?"

xoxox

 _2 weeks later_

"This was not bad," Claire admitted. "And this is delicious." She added, looking at the soft serve strawberry ice-cream they got after the roar of applause had died down.

"Not bad?" Owen echoed with mock hurt. "It was fantastic."

"You shouldn't have been doing any of it for at least another week," she noted with reproach, pointing at the sling around his shoulder.

"What can I say?" He flashed a cheeky smile at her and wiggled his eyebrows. "They listen to me the best."

She laughed at that.

"You're really full of yourself, Mr. Grady, do you know that?"

Owen stopped in the shade of the palm trees, allowing the crowds to stream past them, filling the air with animated chatter and excited outbursts of laughter.

"It's Owen," he reminded her.

"Owen," she echoed.

"Hey, you've got something…" He stepped closer to Claire, reaching over to brush a strand of hair from her face, and then dipped his head to kiss her, tasting strawberry ice-cream on her lips. "Got it."

She grabbed his shirt and pulled him down again with a soft laugh. "Yes, you did."

 **The end**

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 **A/N:** Feedback is always appreciated! :D Thanks for reading!


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